Orkut Blog

Face detection in orkut photo albums– photo tagging just got easier

2009-07-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

Photo albums are one of the most popular features on orkut and a personal favorite of mine. For me, tagging photos have been an especially good way of keeping a record of all the fun times that I've shared with friends. Yet as much as I love having my photo albums labeled, big albums (especially those with lots of group shots), can take a long time to tag.

To speed up the tagging process, we're launching a face detection feature on all new photos uploaded to orkut. With it, orkut is now able to automatically detect when faces appear in photos (by recognizing features like eyes, noses, mouths, etc.), but without actually identifying specific individuals. The algorithm is not perfect, however, so things like eyeglasses, difficult lighting, poses, etc. may 'fool' our system from time to time. If that ever happens, rest assured that you can always tag photos as you normally would, and of course change or remove any tags that you're unhappy with.

We've made the tagging process even easier by adding an auto-fill feature that suggests names from your friends list for the people that you tag. Just start typing in your friend's name, and auto-fill will take care of the rest.

Of course, all of the privacy features that you currently have with photos on orkut will remain in place and only your friends will be able to tag you in their photos. You'll also have the additional option of removing all tags if you would prefer not to be tagged in this manner or not to take advantage of orkut's face detection. We'll be rolling face detection out to everyone over the next few days, so if you're ready to see how it works, just try uploading a new photo to orkut.

Posted by Anand Pillai, Software Engineer.

Bring your orkut friendships with you as you travel the web with Google Friend Connect

2009-07-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

Today marks the international launch of Google Friend Connect, making the product available in 47 new languages, including Portuguese, Hindi, and Spanish. Friend Connect provides a way for website owners to easily add social features to their sites, creating a unified online social experience across diverse sites from around the web.

What's more, Friend Connect is integrated with orkut, allowing you to bring your orkut friendships with you to a host of participating sites. Login to Friend Connect using your orkut credentials, link in your orkut account, and you'll be saved the trouble of having to upload a new photo, create a new profile or re-establish all of the orkut friendships you've already made.

For those of you who have your own websites, Friend Connect makes it possible for anyone to join your site and discover other members. Instead of requiring complex and/or time intensive programming, Friend Connect also offers a catalog of social gadgets that you can add to your site by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code. Visit the gadget gallery to find gadgets available in your language.

The orkut team was so pleased to hear about Friend Connect's international launch that we decided to add Friend Connect to the official orkut blogs. If you haven't noticed already, you can now follow the blog, and see which of your orkut friends are avid blog readers as well.

If you're a site owner and are interested in adding Friend Connect to your site, head to google.com/friendconnect. If you're a regular Friend Connect user, just login using your orkut account information and start taking your orkut network with you around the web!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager

Updates to OpenSocial apps on orkut

2009-06-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

By now, some of you have probably noticed that we've made some changes to OpenSocial apps on orkut. To make sure everyone knows what's going on, we thought we'd quickly run through what's new in this post.

OpenSocial apps categories: To make it easier to find the perfect Open Social application to fit your needs, we've organized the apps into categories. Now, whether you're interested in an app related to finance or just a simple game, you can quickly and easily find what you're looking for. You can now see the most popular and most recently added OpenSocial apps, as well as the apps your friends are using, broken down by category.

OpenSocial apps stats: A great way to find new OpenSocial apps to try is by looking at how many people use particular apps and how often. We've recently made this comparison much easier by adding stats on the number of users each app has, as well as its weekly usage directly to the 'application info' page.

New OpenSocial apps profile view: In order to help make the OpenSocial apps experience faster and more secure, we've changed how apps appear on your profile pages. All OpenSocial apps now display a combination of html and images and/or animated gifs on profile pages rather than the moving flash images some used to show. But don't worry, when you click on the app, you'll still have all the same functionality that you've always had. While this change might take some getting used to, we hope you'll appreciate how much faster and safer it makes orkut.

As always, we love to hear your feedback, so be sure to share your opinion in the orkut Help Group and let us know how we can make apps even more useful and fun.

Posted by Rahul Kulkarni, Product Manager

Advertising on orkut

2009-06-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about social networks is their ability to supply you with information that's relevant to you: whether that be updates from friends, an invite to a fun party, or photos of a new baby in the family. On the orkut team, we believe that advertisements should be no different. That's why we've done our best to match you with the ads that we think you'll be most interested in.

Ever wonder why you see ads related to cricket while your techie older sister tends to see more ads for laptop computers? One of the important ways that the orkut ads platform is able to match you with relevant ads is by looking broadly at the types of communities you've chosen to join. So if you're a member of tons of sports communities while your sister prefers to join ones related to gaming, the two of you will probably see some different ads. Of course, respecting your personal information is very important to us, which is why we've created a clear privacy policy letting you know exactly how it's used.

We also believe that even the most well-targeted ads have their time and place. This is why not all of you see ads on orkut and why those of you who do only see them in a fixed and limited space on each page where they appear.

Recently we decided to move the location of ads on your homepages to a more prominent position: the top right of the page. While we know this is a bit of a change from what you're used to, we've found this to be the best way to strike a balance between making ads more visible and maintaining our focus on providing you with a great user experience.

To help make our ads platform even easier to understand and provide a place for advertisers to get started creating campaigns, we've built an advertising microsite. Access it at: www.orkut.com/advertise or by clicking on the "advertise" link in the footer of your orkut page.

We hope you enjoy these new additions to orkut and that you take the time to check out our new advertising microsite. On it you'll find advertising options both for established advertisers and for people looking to create a campaign for the very first time. You know we love feedback, so if you have anything you'd like to share, just head to the orkut Help Forum.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager

Introducing the orkut mobile app

2009-06-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

When we first launched a version of orkut for mobile phones, we couldn't have predicted how popular it would become. Every day, many of you sign in to orkut on your phones from all over the world– checking out scraps, updates from friends, and even viewing photos. As mobile phones are becoming one of the major ways that you access orkut, we thought it was about time to introduce a mobile application that offered you the site's core functionality wherever you happen to be.

Today, we're thrilled to announce the beta launch of the orkut mobile application, a downloadable app for Java-enabled phones (including popular phones like the Nokia N95, Nokia 6300, and Sony Ericsson W580i), that truly makes your orkut experience as mobile as you are. Check out our top five favorite features of the orkut mobile app:

Upload photos to orkut on-the-go, directly from your phone.
View scraps, friends' updates, and photo albums while you're offline.
Share your orkut albums with all of your friends whether they use orkut or not (via SMS).
Easily call or SMS your orkut friends and address book contacts from within the app.
Get automatic updates when your friends change their contact information or orkut profiles.

Excited? Install the orkut mobile app (available in English and Portuguese), by heading to m.google.com/orkut on your mobile phone's browser. While the app is free to download and use, your mobile provider's regular data charges will apply.

We've done our best to make this app accessible to as many of you as possible, so as long as you have Java enabled phone and a data plan, you should be all set. For more detailed info on supported phones, check out our help center. Once you've had a chance to play with this new app, we'd love to hear your feedback, so head to the Help Forum and let us know what you think.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Google Mobile Team

Our condolences

2009-06-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

The orkut team was deeply saddened to learn of the recent accident involving Air France Flight 447. We would like to offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of all of the victims.

As we know that many of you are also troubled by this tragedy, we'd like to point you to a user created community meant to help you show support for those affected (in Portuguese): Vôo AF 447 - Luto.

Posted by the orkut Team.

Staying secure on orkut

2009-05-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

Working on orkut security, I know that fraudulent sites sometimes try to take advantage of orkut users like you and me. To help make sure that everyone is able to have a fun and safe experience on the site, I thought I'd share a few quick tips that I've picked up during my time on the orkut team. A bunch of these might seem like no-brainers, but hopefully you'll learn something new here as well:

Create a tough password: While "yourname123" is always a tempting password to create, keep in mind that it's just as easy for a malicious user to figure out as it is for you to remember. Try creating a password that involves a combination of letters and numbers that no one could easily guess, even if they know basic details about who you are. The same goes for your security question (the question that pops up if you forget your password)– you should try your best to pick a question that only you can answer.

Keep your private details private: Never share your orkut username and password with friends or on a site not authenticated by Google. orkut does not allow any external sites to store orkut login information and will never request that you enter it anywhere outside of the orkut login page. To be on the safe side, always check that your address bar reads "https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?....." and nothing else when sharing your orkut user name and password.

Leave the coding to the engineers: Never copy and paste code into your address bar, no matter what it claims to be able to do. Typically these scripts actually send messages (in your name!) to your friends trying to trick them into giving up their personal information.

Downloads and orkut don't mix: Never download any file off of orkut, especially those that end in '.vb' or '.exe'. These files are often viruses that can infect your computer and start sending thousands of spam messages on your behalf. Sites offering special orkut themes or skins are particularly risky.

Think twice about external links: Links to sites outside of orkut that appear in scraps or posts have not been verified by the orkut team, and could lead you to harmful sites. We'd recommend only clicking on links that go to trusted sites or those that are from other orkut users you know well.

Anti-Virus software is always a good call: Even the most conscientious orkuteer can fall victim to a phishing attack, so it's important to always be alert and prepared. Regularly scanning your computer with updated anti-virus software is a great way to keep your computer secure. Haven't installed anti-virus software on your computer yet? Check out Google Pack.

For new orkut features, check out apps!: Sometimes an unofficial site may claim to offer special orkut features, but these sites are known for taking over orkut accounts and directly violate our Terms of Service. If you're looking for fun new orkut functionality, check out the thousands of applications that we have available. All of these apps have been built by talented developers according to standards that we believe will help to keep you safe online. If you haven't visited the app directory recently, take a look– you might be surprised at how much cool stuff you find.

If you have more tips for staying safe on orkut that you think could benefit others, head over to the orkut U2U group and share them!

Posted by O. Todd Yates, orkut Abuse and Security

More controls for community owners

2009-04-30T06:51:00.000-07:00

Like many of you, a number of us on the orkut team are proud owners of active communities on orkut. While we love to see the discussions and divergent opinions that often come up, there are definitely times when the passion of our community members becomes overwhelming. Members sometimes start flame wars – creating new topics or polls to get their point across on the community home page, topics list and polls list pages. This degrades the overall experience for the other community members and often leaves us searching for ways to keep things under control.

To help with this issue, I developed a feature that does exactly that. Community owners now have access to a new setting: "only owner and moderators can create forum topics," which they can turn on and off as they wish. If you want to give it a try, just go to the "edit profile" page of your community.

When passions run high, you can now make use of this feature within your community. You can also try creating a few new forum topics like "Rant Room" or "Suggest new forum topics," where community members can continue their discussions without affecting everyone else's experience.

Sometimes the moderators on our communities even create new polls or forum topics to gauge how things are going. We've found the question: "Which member do you find most disruptive to quality conversations in the community and should be kicked out?" to be a particularly effective way of making sure that things stay civil.

We hope this new feature makes it even easier to maintain active and engaged communities on orkut. Have feedback about this feature or other advice for how to keep a community cool during heated discussions? Head to the orkut U2U group and give us a heads up.

Posted by Siddarth Naidu, Software Engineer

An orkut story

2009-04-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

We on the orkut team love using this blog to communicate with all of you guys about new features, special promotions, and the general goings-on here in our offices. We've found however, that some of the most interesting posts are actually the ones that come directly from you, and we've enjoyed hearing your personal orkut stories.

Recently we came across this story that we thought was so cool we just couldn't help but share. Read on to find out how Gisele, an early adopter of orkut (and wife of a Googler), found an unexpected use for the site many years after deciding that orkut wasn't for her.

Translated from Portuguese from Gisele's blog:

I remember quite well when I was first invited to join orkut. I found it strange, a huge e-mail in English, where only the sender looked familiar. Was it spam?

Many friends were chattering about having received that same e-mail, until someone finally explained to us what it was all about. So we signed up, posted pictures, joined communities, met people, it was a big thing.

However, the unanswered question in 2004 (that some people still have today) was: What is the purpose of orkut?

Without finding a convincing answer, I quit orkut in 2005 and didn't miss the site. However, last year, my husband (who quit orkut at the same time as I did) and I, decided to quietly return. We created a discreet profile that we only occasionally access, but that meets our needs. The site turned into a tool, used from time to time.

The last few days on orkut have been surprising. We accessed the site with our hearts in our throats, as we were looking for some special people. Special to me, without ever having seen them, met them, or heard from them.

They are my brothers-in-law, who my husband has been seeking unsuccessfully for eight years– and we finally found them through orkut!!!

I still question my presence on the site, but I am extremely grateful for it for making such an important encounter possible. And now the meeting will happen!!!

Gisele Gonçalves Bueno Quirino de Souza

Want to read more? See the original blog post here (in Portuguese). If you've got a personal orkut story that you'd like to share, just send us a quick note and let us know!

Posted by Rodrigo Paiva, Consumer Operations.

Just for laughs: what to do when someone ignores you on orkut?

2009-04-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

It could happen to anyone– you get to know someone, find them on orkut and ask them to add you as a friend. But instead of responding, they ignore you, and as the days creep on, you start to get a little upset. Or, even more extreme, you find out that a friend has deleted you from his friend list. What should you do in a situation like this?

Kicking and screaming may not be the best solution. Laughing at the situation is probably a better (and less exhausting) way to respond – especially since tomorrow you could be the 'friend deleter' rather than 'the deleted'. An even better option is just to pick up your guitar and sing this song (in Portuguese):

Original lyrics:

Você me ignorou no ORKUT
Isso é mau e repercute
Na minha auto estima
Já nem sei o que é que rima
Com a palavras scrap!
(...)
Você me ignorou no ORKUT
Eu só quero que me escute
Por que apagou meu depoimento…?
Um amor, um sentimento,
Foi levado pelo vento
Ouça essa canção que fiz para você
Se achar que tem a vê…
Te espero na lan house…
Eu tô sempre na lan house…
Quero tc com você…

English Translation:

You ignored my orkut post
This is bad and hurts the most
This self-esteem of mine
I don’t even know what rhymes
With the word scrap!
(…)
You ignored my orkut post
I need you to hear my woes
Why did you erase my line…?
A love, a feeling so fine
Taken by the wind, online
Please hear this song I made for you
If you think it has to do
I’ll wait for you at the Internet café
I’m always at the Internet café
I want to type with you…

This song was written by the Brazilian writer and columnist (and of course, orkut user), Luiz Marcondes. Have you made something creative related to orkut? Send us a note and let us know, we might be able to feature it on the orkut blog!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

Find your online friends with the new orkut chat roster

2009-04-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, the recent launch of the built-in chat feature within orkut has made hanging out with friends online much easier and a whole lot more fun. Yet, while it's always great to come across a little green 'available' bubble next to the name of a good friend, finding friends who are available to chat on orkut hasn't been as straightforward as it could have been.

To make it easier to connect with all of your friends who are online, we've decided to launch an orkut chat roster. This new roster shows you all of your contacts who are signed into Google Talk, whether through orkut, Gmail, iGoogle or the Google Talk application. If you want to chat with any of them, all you have to do is click on their names directly within the roster.

No matter where you go on orkut, the chat roster sits neatly on the left side of your orkut page. Want to customize the size and organization of your chat roster? Play with its look and feel by clicking on the 'options' tab. Of course, if you ever get tired of seeing who's signed into chat, you can also minimize the roster (or sign out of chat entirely), with a single click.

We've just begun to roll this feature out to everyone who has chat enabled in orkut, so if you haven't seen a roster yet, please be patient- we'll do our best to get it out to everyone as soon as we can.

Posted by Rodrigo Almeida, Software Engineer.

Google Latitude on orkut- share your live location with friends

2009-04-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have heard about the recent launch of Google Latitude, a fun new way to share your live location with friends. For those of you who aren't familiar, Google Latitude is a feature of Google Maps for Mobile that lets you (if you choose to opt-in) share your whereabouts and receive updates about your friends' approximate locations.

While we've already launched an iGoogle gadget, we knew that our launch couldn't be complete without bringing this to orkut. That's why a group of us on the Google Mobile team have created a Google Latitude application.

With this app, you can share your location and see your friends' locations on a map inside of orkut. Notice that an old friend is back in your hometown? Just click on her photo and send a scrap or head to her profile page and see what she's up to.

If you use Google Latitude from your mobile phone, you can even send your friends updates on your location while you're out and about, making it easier to bump into the people you care about.

Of course, none of this would be very much fun at all if you didn't have control over what and when you share and who you share it with. We've taken Latitude's privacy features very seriously and invite you to learn more about them in either the Help Center or by watching this privacy video.

Excited? Add the app and let your friends know where you are!

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Google Mobile Team

Bringing real people back into the conversation

2009-04-13T05:41:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest things about orkut is how it allows us all to form communities around the things that we care about. Personally, I love jumping into discussion forums and talking about my favorite topics with other people who share my enthusiasm.

More and more, however, we've noticed that the anonymous posts feature has been making it hard to have the kind of fun and meaningful conversations that everyone looks forward to in orkut communities. Instead of quality posts, we've been seeing a lot of spammy and abusive comments from anonymous users.

In order to make communities a more fun place to hang out, we've decided to remove the "post anonymously" option for all communities. While no new anonymous posts will be accepted on any community forum, any previously posted anonymous comments will be allowed to remain live for the time being.

We hope that this new change brings more balanced and useful conversations to the orkut discussion forums. If you have feedback for us about the decision, please feel to reach out through the orkut U2U group- we'd love to hear it.

Happy posting!

Posted by Rahul Kulkarni, Product Manager

orkut catches the election fever

2009-04-08T02:58:00.000-07:00

It's election time in India, and the orkut team wants to make sure that your voice is heard this year. That's why we've launched an ‘official’ community: “The Voice of Youth (www.orkut.co.in/loksabha2009).” By visiting the Voice of Youth community you can express your opinion and find out how other people from all over the country feel about the upcoming elections, the issues and India's leaders.

Outfitted with a special theme, the Voice of Youth community lets you participate in a poll that features a series of fun and thought-provoking questions about everything from voting and politicians to locally relevant issues. What's more, as soon as you answer a question, you'll be able to see the poll results in real time. We didn't want to leave anyone out of this experience, so even non-orkut users are free to visit the community.

Ready to participate? Just head to http://www.orkut.co.in/loksabha2009 and start answering the poll questions. Here are a few of our personal favorites:

1. What's the most important issue facing the country?
2. Can a celebrity influence your vote?
3. Who is the most good-looking politician?

As people vote in the poll, we'll be highlighting some of the most interesting results on the community's homepage. If you think we've missed a poll question on a topic you care about, feel free to suggest it right within the community.

Finally, what would an orkut election themed community be without a space for local flavor? To help make the Voice of the Youth community relevant to your local concerns, we've created chat rooms dedicated to each of the states in India.

We hope you take advantage of this new opportunity to be heard in this year's election. Don't delay though, as voting on all the polls will close on April 14th!

Posted by Shaon Roy Chowdhury, Consumer Operations Associate and Vihari Komaragiri, Product Manager

Skin updates in Activity Streams

2009-03-24T06:26:00.000-07:00

With all of the new orkut skins that we've launched recently, we recognize that trying to keep up with the latest additions can be a little overwhelming. To help make sure that none of you have to worry about missing out on a skin that you might like to add, we've decided to add skin updates to your activity streams.

Now you should start seeing updates whenever your friends change the background of their profiles. If you want to check out the skin that they're using, just click on your friend's name. As always, whenever you feel inspired to change the look of your own orkut profile (whether it is to one of the skins your friend is using or any of the others available), just click on the 'change skins' link in your orkut header.

Posted by Rafael, Software Engineer.

[UPDATE: All of you guys in India can feel free to start using this feature right away. Everyone else should keep an eye out for this the next time we launch a skin on orkut. We hope you enjoy it!]

Introducing inline photo comments in your activity streams

2009-03-20T12:44:00.000-07:00

Reading the latest comments on your friend's photos in your activity stream, but not sure how to reply? We've just made this easier for you do by letting you make comments directly in your activity stream.

Now, whenever a friend's comment on a photo pops up in your activity stream, you can quickly reply by simply selecting "add comment." Hope this helps keep the comments flowing!

Posted by Robson, Software Engineer.

Never miss a birthday again with orkut birthdays on Google Calendar

2009-03-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Birthdays is one of the most popular features we've added to orkut, but we recognize that it doesn't always give you all the information you need. It's great to know about birthdays coming up in the next couple weeks, but sometimes it's also important to see the birthdays that have already passed and the ones coming further down the line.

Now, in conjunction with Google Calendar, you can see all of your orkut friend's birthdays for the whole year.

If you've already used Google Calendar before, you will shortly see a link (right below the "upcoming birthdays" section) where you can add your orkut friends' birthdays to your Google calendar.

Once you've added your orkut birthday calendar to Google Calendar, you can navigate forward and backwards through time to see whose birthday is coming up and any birthdays you might have missed.

Just be sure to pay extra attention to your friends with birthdays on holidays on weekends- they tend not to get as many 'happy birthday' scraps as everyone else :-(.

Not using Google Calendar yet? Check out the Google Calendar website to learn more about what it offers and to get started.

Posted by Scott Kirkwood, Software Engineer.

Happy Holi on orkut!

2009-03-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

Whoa, I just got hit by a handful of blue powder and a water balloon! This can only mean one thing- it must be time for this year's Holi festival.

For those of you who don't know, Holi, also known as the Festival of Colors, is one of the most popular (and most fun, in my unbiased opinion), festivals in India. On Holi Eve, the night before the festival begins, friends and family get together to light bonfires which represent the destruction of everything evil.

Things really start to get exciting on the day of Holi itself. Today, people all across India (as well as Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad, Nepal and even the UK), are celebrating by playfully throwing colorful liquids and powders at their friends and loved ones.

While there are few things better than spraying a good friend with brightly colored water, sometimes you can't always see all of your friends in person during Holi. That's where orkut comes in! Now you can use the Superscrap or the Fun Scraps applications to splash some color onto the scrapbooks of all of your friends, no matter where they are.

If you want some more info about the Holi festival itself, or want to chat with other Holi enthusiasts, visit this Holi community.

We've even made sure to include the orkut logo in these Holi festivities. Check out this year's Holi doodle:

For those of you who are celebrating, we hope you have a happy Holi!

Posted by Rahul Kulkarni, Product Manager.

New orkut Help Forum

2009-03-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

The orkut Help Forum has long served as a hub for all of you who want to share your opinions, experiences and challenges. We've always counted on the help of those of you who have been vocal about orkut and willing to share your "orkutise". People like the orkuteers helped shape our forum into a one-stop shop for questions, suggestions, bug reporting, tips and tricks.

To improve this channel and streamline communication, the orkut Help Forum has been recently converted into a new platform that shortens the trail between questions and answers and rewards useful and helpful participation.

Here are some of the features you'll find in the new orkut Help Forum:

The option to add references to your answers, such as Help Center articles, web pages, pictures or YouTube videos
Seamless access to Help Center pages
Improved search results, including posts from the old and the new forum
Recognition of helpful members as "Top Contributors"
An automated reputation and ranking system
The ability to mark questions as answered

You're welcome to stop by our forum anytime. Google employees will continue to check in from time to time, but first and foremost, this is the place for you all to help one another.

We hope you enjoy it!

Posted by Vitória, orkut Guide

Use orkut to spread awareness on World Cancer Day

2009-02-04T05:16:00.000-08:00

Today is the official World Cancer Day, a day meant to help inspire people around the world to come together and fight against all different forms of cancer.

We thought we'd use today as an opportunity to let you know about all of the different resources on orkut both for people affected by cancer and for those who are looking for ways to prevent it and find a cure.

With a number of communities related to different forms of cancer, orkut is a great place to come for information and support. There's even a Cancer Research community where you can discuss the science and politics of cancer research.

If you have ideas about other ways to use orkut to help in the battle against cancer, please just send us a quick note and let us know.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

Happy Republic Day in India!

2009-01-26T17:36:00.000-08:00

As many of you already know, today is the 60th annual celebration of Republic Day in India!

For those of you who'll be celebrating with your friends and families today, we wanted to make sure that you didn't forget about the fun ways to enjoy the holiday on orkut.

Hang out with other Indian orkuteers on one of the many Republic Day communities, add your input to one of the Republic Day related topics, or use this OpenSocial app to send Happy Republic Day wishes to all of your friends. There's even an orkut community dedicated solely to people who were born on Republic Day.

Not from India? No need to feel left out. orkut is a global social network, so we're going to do our best to make sure that we celebrate your holidays too. Be on the lookout for more special announcements throughout the year!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

orkut is turning five!

2009-01-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Today marks orkut's 5th birthday, and the orkut team is in the mood to party. Since we didn't have quite enough cake to share with all of you, we figured we'd do a special birthday doodle instead. Check it out:

Excited? Send 5th birthday cards to your friends using this Greeting Card application.

Five years is such a milestone for us (and for all of you dedicated orkuteers too), that we didn't think that one day was enough time to celebrate. That's why we've decided to announce today as the kick-off for a year of special announcements.

Recently we've launched several new orkut features in preparation for 2009. Here are a few of our favorites:

built-in instant messaging: talk to your orkut and Gmail friends on orkut in real time (we're still rolling this out to some of you, so don't worry if you haven't noticed it yet)
events tool: manage your busy social lives on orkut
total photo privacy control: share your photos with as few or as many people as you'd like (including your non-orkut friends!)
mobile orkut: use orkut on your mobile phone; there's even a rich version built especially for the iPhone
OpenSocial applications: play with the thousands of fun apps on orkut, and add your favorites to your profile page

We've got a bunch of new stuff planned for the rest of the year that we hope will make orkut an even more fun place for you to hang out with your friends. Be on the lookout for new developments– we promise that these are changes you won't want to miss!

Thanks for sticking with us for all of these years and best wishes for 2009!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

Prizes for Panchayats– using orkut to reward grassroots innovation

2008-12-30T04:34:00.000-08:00

We here at Google.org are excited to announce a contest that we hope many of you orkuteers are able to get involved in: the Google.org Gram Panchayat Puraskar (GGPP). For those of you who don't already know, Panchayats were Mahatma Gandhi’s original vision for a free India – an India made up of thousands of “little Republics” where people meet their needs through self-reliance. Today, panchayats are responsible for implementing development programs. They often create positive change at the grassroots level, but we think that their success stories aren’t always as well known as they should be.

To help celebrate innovative panchayats and encourage more innovation in local governance throughout India, we've created the first Google.org Gram Panchayat Puraskar (GGPP). We'll reward the top five panchayats in two states, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, with a cash prize of Rs.5 lakhs (approximately $10,000 USD) which they can use to do more good in their communities.

The prize will be awarded in one of six areas: education, health and nutrition, water supply, rural infrastructure, rural electrification, and resource mobilization. The winning payanchat must include a wide variety of social and income groups, share information with villagers, respond to citizen feedback, and track the quality of programs.

Think your gram panchayat has what it takes to win? Sign up for the contest now and tell us why! To enter, you can either visit the contest website at www.google.org/ggpp.html, or pick-up an application at your district or block panchayat office in Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh. The contest is only open for applications through January 25, 2009 though, so don't waste any time!

Wanna learn more? Be sure to check out the official GGPP page that we've created for this contest, and of course join the GGPP orkut community. With our orkut community, you can ask questions, read related news, and most importantly, get to know other people interested in fostering social change in their local region.

Check out what Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Union Minister of Panchayat Raj had to say about the competition:

Hope to see you on orkut and hear about all of the great innovations that your panchayats have come up with soon!

Posted by Salimah Samji, Program Manager, Inform & Empower and Meryl Stone, Senior Associate, Inform & Empower, Google.org.

A special holiday treat from the orkut team

2008-12-11T04:47:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing that the orkut team loves, it's the holidays. The twinkling lights, the cheerful music, the snow...(okay, maybe not snow for most of us), all make this one of the most magical times of year.

To help you share in the holiday spirit with us and all of your orkut friends, we've decided to try something new and (hopefully!) exciting this year: a special holiday page on orkut.

With this page you can create holiday parties using the events tool, send season's greetings to friends and relatives using photos and videos, and play with three fun, holiday themed apps.

Already excited? Check out this screenshot of the page now:

Working with the talented developers at BuddyPoke, StudioSol and Gartic.com, we've compiled a selection of three apps featuring special holiday promotions. Here's a quick list of the apps and a few details about all of the cool ways you can join in the holiday cheer:

BuddyPoke

Dance with Santa, kiss under the mistletoe, give presents to friends and much more

My Music

Check out a Christmas music playlist with your friends

Christmas Tree

Create and decorate your very own Christmas tree and send presents to friends

The holidays are all about sharing things with the people you care about, so be sure to tell your friends about the special holiday page on orkut. Just remember, this page will only be around for a few weeks, so be sure to visit it now. Hope your holidays are healthy, happy and safe!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

The Earth's Vital List: What are the 12 things you can't live without?

2008-12-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

The orkut team has come across another cool app that we think many of you may enjoy using and sharing with your friends: 'The Earth's Vital List.' This app is part of a global digital campaign for Fox's remake of the 1951 film The Day The Earth Stood Still. The campaign mimics the film's premise— Earth and human life are threatened by extinction from an alien race of super-robot enforcers.

'The Earth's Vital List' app begs the question: If the Earth was under attack and you and your possessions could be protected in an alien sphere, what would you save?

With the app, you can build 'vital lists'– lists of 12 prized possessions that you would want to save from extinction on "The Day the Earth Stands Still". In building your list, you can upload personal photos of all of your must-have items. You can then share your 'vital list' with your friends, allowing them to comment and vote on the things you chose.

A global 'vital list' micro-site tabulates the votes across all social networks and languages and allows people to view how their items rank in comparison to the rest of the world. A countdown to the film's debut (12/12/08) will coincide with a special reveal on orkut displaying the final world's vital list of the top 1,212 prized possessions.

So check out the app and find out what things your friends and people all around the world just can't live without.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.